Designing Games with Game Maker - YoYo Games

Sounds and music
Most games have certain sound effects and some background music. Many useful sound
effects can be found on the Game Maker website. Many more can be found on other places on
the web.
To create a sound resource in your game, use the item Create Sound in the Resources
menu or use the corresponding button on the toolbar. The following form will pop up.
To load a sound, press the button labeled Load Sound. A file selector dialog pops up in which
you can select the sound file. There are two types of sound files, wave files and midi files.
Wave files are used for short sound effects. They use a lot of memory but play
instantaneously. Use these for all the sound effects in your game. Midi files describe music in a
different way. As a result they use a lot less memory, but they are limited to instrumental
background music. Also, default only one midi sound can play at any time.
Once you load a music file you can listen to the sound using the play button. There is also a
button Save Sound to save the current sound to a file. This button is not really required but
you might need it if you lost the original sound.
Backgrounds
The third type of basic resource is backgrounds. Backgrounds are usually large images that
are used as backgrounds (or foregrounds) for the rooms in which the game takes place. Often
background images are made in such a way that they can tile an area without visual cracks. In
this way you can fill the background with some pattern. A number of such tiling backgrounds
can be found on the Game Maker website. Many more can be found at other places on the
web.